Renewing medical after lymphoma
 

I was recently diagnosed with a lymphoma in my lower GI tract and have had the malignancy removed and have begun a 4 round treatment of chemotherapy. Doctors are very optomistic that I will recover fully from this (praise God!) but I will still need to get recertified. Any ideas on how long that takes? My AME says I need to be free of the cancer and the effects of chemo for 6 months, yet AOPA could find no such requirement. In fact, I've heard of some airline pilots who flew between chemo treatments. How did they pull that off? Strong union? I have no such union protection where I work, although they have been very supportive of me and my family but still, I'll need my meal ticket back ASAP. Thanks in advance for any advice ya'll can offer.

Sorry to hear about that, but lymphoma is very treatable and I know two pilots who have a history of it.

As for how long it takes to get your medical back...it depends entirely on your unique circumstances. You cannot rush the legit medical issues involved, but you might be able to preemptively avoid any bureaucratic snafus. You should pay pay an aviation medical consultant to review the process and help you avoid unnecessary delays.

As far as pilots working while on chemo...I suspect that was a case where the chemo was being done as a purely precautionary measure and there was no evidence of metastis, ie a lone skin cancer was removed with no sign that it had spread.

In the case of an internal tumor such as a lymphoma, they may need to see some evidence that it is eliminated from your system which might involve waiting. But I'm not an expert.

How do I go about finding an aviation medical consultant? Are these ex-AME's? Or through AOPA? It seems the trick is going to be finding the one channel that is most easily worked ie where someone knows someone to help pave the way. I would hate to see all my paperwork languish on some beurocrats desk who couldn't care less about resolution. Thanks.

There are several out there, at least one of which has a marginal reputation. These guys are pretty good, and I believe they are also used by ALPA for it's pilots:

http://www.aviationmedicine.com/

Thanks for the link. I will look into them. Take care!

4 months after chemo, and no evidence of disease, then have all your ducks in a row(clean blood work and scans) before you try, though b/c if you get denied, it's a mandatory 6 months before you can try again. It can be done, I know of someone who finished chemo in Dec and had a medical back by April.

What if no Chemo is required? Let's say a pilot has thyroid cancer or prostate cancer and the malignancy (prostate or thyroid) is removed. Then how long is the wait?

Why a 6 month wait? The FAA is a perfect example of why we shouldn't have the government running health care. What a worthless organization.

All the best mate

It's only a 6 month wait IF you get denied, for any reason. I only know that b/c I know someone who was denied and had a very long wait.

Having gone thru this with kidney cancer and a friend that had lymphoma I can tell you that the folks in OK City are unpredictable. I would recomend that first you make sure and get copies of EVERYTHING! Keep them for your records and ensure that they are accurate.

Second, remember that your health comes before your flying. It is easy to get so concerned about getting back to work that you will allow that to influence your treatment decisions. Do your research about your treatment options, don't just follow orders of the doctors. You need to be your own advocate for the treatment(s) protocols.

Third, you should probably contact one of the companies that have already been discussed such as Virutal Flight Surgeons. I used them for a phone call only and found it was very helpful. You may want to use more of a full service in order to speed up the process.

Most Dr's have no clue about the FAA and how anal they can be. Be careful about some meds, know what the side effects are and how they may impact your medical. I'm not saying don't take them just be prepared about issues that will need to be addressed when submitting all of the records to Ok City. My kidney doc put me on a med to keep my blood pressure down to protect my kidneys. I was not hypertensive but the FAA now considers me to have hypertension and I have to jump through those hoops also.

Good Luck!